Rebel Without a Film Biography ... Until Now

By BERNARD WEINRAUB

Published: July 19, 2000

HOLLYWOOD, July 19—
The death of James Dean in a car crash in 1955 turned that brooding 24-year-old movie star into a tragic legend and symbol of alienation and hurt among teenagers in the 1950's and 1960's. But while other icons of the era, like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, have been grist for a steady stream of novels, biographies and movies, Dean has, surprisingly, been somewhat ignored, especially in films. It's not for a lack of trying.

For years filmmakers have toyed with projects about James Dean but were locked in a Catch-22: studios would only finance the movie with a star, or at least a name actor. But these actors shied away from playing the 1950's icon.

The playwright Israel Horovitz, who had worked on a James Dean screenplay for years, recalled that the actor Ethan Hawke had told him: ''If you do a James Dean imitation, they'll kill you. If you don't do a James Dean imitation, they'll kill you. There's no way I can do it.''

It is, however, being done, with Mr. Horovitz's script, for the TNT network. The film, ''James Dean: An Invented Life,'' is now in production in Los Angeles. It will be shown next year.

''His legend has not been treated with appropriate respect,'' said Mark Rydell, 70, the film's director, whose credits include ''The Rose'' and ''On Golden Pond'' and who was a friend of Dean's in New York.

To play Dean, Mr. Rydell and Bill Gerber, the movie's executive producer, selected James Franco, a little-known, 22-year-old television actor from Palo Alto, Calif. More than 500 actors auditioned for the part, sent tapes or were interviewed.

Mr. Rydell said he had cast Mr. Franco almost as soon as he saw the actor, who bears a resemblance to Dean, and spoke to him at length.

''I met Mark Rydell, and he was like an analyst,'' Mr. Franco said. ''We were talking a long time about personal stuff: my parents and issues I had with them and the trouble I had gotten into as a teenager and why I became an actor. I read very easily, and there was no pressure to give a kind of final performance. Afterwards he gave me a hug and told me I had it. I was amazed.''

Mr. Franco, who has appeared in some television films and independent features as well as the NBC series ''Freaks and Geeks,'' said that during his teenage years he was often told that he looked like Dean. ''I don't have blond hair and blue eyes, like he did,'' said Mr. Franco. ''But they took care of that. I got contacts, and they dyed my hair.''

To put himself in the role, Mr. Franco told his girlfriend he was not going to see her while making the movie and informed his parents he would not be speaking to them. ''I took up smoking, like Dean, and cut off most of my friends,'' he said. ''I'm doing everything I can to approximate his life.''

Dean's life was tormented. Mr. Horovitz and Mr. Rydell said that Dean's three films, ''Rebel Without a Cause,'' ''East of Eden'' and ''Giant,'' were stamped by his playing characters who were, like him, anguished, angry and lonely. Mr. Horovitz said the screenplay was, largely, a story about Dean's hunt for a father who abandoned him when he was 8 his mother died. ''Dean's father was a dental technician who worked at a V.A. hospital in Santa Monica,'' said Mr. Horovitz, ''and when the boy's mother died of cancer, the father shipped the body back on a train to Fairmount, Ind., with the boy to live with his aunt and uncle. He chased his father's affection through his young life.''

Years later Dean turned to directors like Elia Kazan, George Stevens and Nicholas Ray and even executives like Jack Warner as father figures. Just before his death Dean signed what was then an unprecedented $1-million deal with Warner for nine films. ''He spent his life trying to prove to his father that he wasn't worthless,'' Mr. Rydell said.

Certainly Dean's personality and the characters he played on screen seemed to foreshadow some of the mood of the 1960's and 70's.

''He appealed to the young because he understood that youth knew some truths about the world that adults had looked away from: about the unfriendly cities, the instinct for violence and forsaken emotional sensibility,'' wrote David Thomson in A Biographical Dictionary of Film (Knopf). ''Although he was vulnerable and sensitive, he never suggested youthfulness or callowness. On the contrary, he seemed older, sadder and more experienced than the adults in his films.''

Mr. Rydell put it another way: ''He was indeed the first rebel.'' Referring to ''Rebel Without a Cause,'' he declared, ''The film -- and Dean -- demonstrated that adolescents are loaded with anxiety and torture and rage.''

The Dean screenplay had been circulating at Warner Brothers for nearly a decade under the aegis of Marvin Worth, producer of ''Lenny'' (1974) and ''The Rose'' (1979). Mr. Worth, who died in 1998, came close to making the film in 1994 with Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Mann as director. But Mr. Mann, director of ''Heat'' and ''The Insider,'' said that Mr. DiCaprio seemed too young at the time and wanted to wait for a year or so.

By that time they had each moved on to other projects. Other directors like Des McAnuff and Marc Rocco, and actors like Stephen Dorff got involved to one degree or another in the project.

''Nothing much happened,'' recalled Mr. Gerber, formerly a top Warner executive. ''It just kind of hung around. It was just hard to find bankable names that Warner Brothers would finance a $20 million movie with. And there were marketing problems. He died in a highway accident 1955. He isn't that well known by the moviegoing public these days.''

The project would probably have died with Mr. Worth, but Mr. Gerber suggested it as a movie for cable television, where inclusion of a big name star is not as important as it is for theatrical release. TNT, owned by Time Warner Inc., is seen in about 77.5 million homes. Julie Weitz, TNT's executive vice president of original programming, said the story carried a certain resonance for television viewers, especially those in their 30's and 40's.

''He's as hip and relatable today as he was years ago,'' said Ms. Weitz. ''At the core of this story is a movie about a child, and he stays a child. And that's timeless.''

Mr. Rydell said he was friendly with Dean in the 50's when they were struggling theater and television actors. ''He was a remarkably charming and quirky and unpredictable fellow,'' said Mr. Rydell. ''We were walking down Madison Avenue one Sunday after doing 'Omnibus' on CBS. He was talking to me about bullfighting, which was a passion of his. A bus was hurtling down Madison, passing many stops because it was so quiet. And suddenly Jimmy leapt into the street, whipped his jacket off and did a bullfighter's pass.

''The bus literally grazed his shirt. I was horrified. He giggled. I thought this kid would never live because he was so reckless. And what happened a few years later was tragic.''

Photos: James Franco, left, who plays James Dean, and Mark Rydell, director. (Misha Erwitt for The New York Times); James Dean in 1955, the year he made the movie ''Giant.'' (Associated Press)(pg. E5); James Franco portrays James Dean in a biography being filmed for TNT. (Misha Erwitt for The New York Times)(pg. E1)